A survey conducted by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences shows that the number of Americans reading a book for the sheer pleasure of it (vs., say, because they’ve been assigned to read one in school) is rapidly declining.

The age breakdowns for three different years since the early 1990s are depicted in this chart.

The fact that the most recent data are five years old doesn’t cheer us up much. On the contrary.

According to an article in The Guardian, Among the findings of a recently-published study that compared institution-based cultural offerings of 12 cities worldwide:

“[Paris] has 830 public libraries compared to Shanghai’s 477, London’s 383, Tokyo’s 377, Johannesburg’s 234, New York’s 220, Sydney’s 154 and Berlin’s 88. Paris also has more bookshops – 1,025 to London’s 802, although Tokyo has the most (1,675); Shanghai has 1,322 and Johannesburg has 1,020.”

“If you read one book a week, starting at the age of 5, and live to be 80, you will have read a grand total of 3,900 books, a little over one-tenth of 1 percent of the books currently in print.” – Lewis Buzbee, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

“On average, out of about five-plus hours of leisure time available to each person each day, Americans are reading around 20, maybe 25 minutes. This includes all forms of leisure reading, including magazines, blogs, and the backs of cereal boxes.”

“Older people read more than the youngest group, although even that group reads more than the thirtysomethings.”

“The rich outread the poor, and whites read about three times as much as those from the minority groups included in the statistics.”

[Tim credits the books-in-the-television image above to House of April, the blog of photographer April Chandler.]

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